Economics

Social networks

Addiction as a social benefit

Apr 2nd 2013, 14:27by R.A. | WASHINGTON

THIS week wonks are taking a break from complaining about blogs on Twitter in order to complain about Twitter on blogs. Ezra Klein writes:

The problem isn’t Twitter, exactly. Twitter, like so much else, is excellent when consumed in moderation. But it’s also an unusually addictive product, and it has certain unusual properties that help it crowd out other information streams.

If I neglect my RSS feed today, the posts will still be there tomorrow. The same is true for the books I’m reading, the magazines piled on my nightstand, the tabs open in my browser, the long-form I’ve saved to Pocket, the e-mails I’ve filed away to read later, the think tank papers saved to my desktop, and pretty much every other sort of information I consume. The backlog nags at me, but I’ll get to it.

Twitter elicits a more poisonous information anxiety. It moves so fast that if I’m not continuously checking in, I completely lose track of the conversation — and it’s almost impossible to figure out what happened three hours ago, much less two days ago. I can’t save Twitter for later, and thus there’s always a pressure to check Twitter now. Twitter ends up taking more of my time than I’d like it to, as there’s a constant reason to check it rather than, say, reading a magazine article.

I second Matt Yglesias' point that Twitter is both fun and incredibly useful to me as a journalist. There are often times when my feed runs thick with bad jokes about the latest piece of breaking news. But more generally it serves as a personalised wire service, updating me on breaking news, letting me know which pieces of longer-form writing are being discussed, passing along new data as it comes out, and peppering the experience with good humour.

But I'd also note that Twitter's addictiveness, and it is highly addictive, is one of the main reasons it is so useful. Twitter is a social network, and is subject to network externalities: the more people use it, the more useful it becomes to each member of the network. If funny people, or interesting people, or smart people, or skilled aggregators didn't use Twitter, it would be a boring place to hang out, people would stop using it, and the network would fall apart.

What that means, though, is that all those funny and interesting people are providing large social benefits to the rest of us for which they aren't rewarded. All of us would prefer that Mr Klein spend more time on Twitter than he would otherwise opt to contribute based on his own view of personal costs and benefits. There is too little tweeting relative to the social optimum.

Now, one way to solve that problem, economically, is to subsidise participation in Twitter, much as countries subsidise basic research. Twitter could provide incentives of some sort for the most interesting users to spend more time interacting on the network. But Twitter may not need to do that thanks to the addictive nature of the service. That behaviour aspect—the nagging feeling that you're missing out on a fun conversation or an interesting tidbit—keeps people coming back even when they might be better off, individually, finishing the piece they need to file (to take an entirely random example). Addictiveness, in other words, helps internalise the network externality, keeps the most interesting people on the network participating, and maintains the "useful Twitter" equilibrium.

Of course, if it becomes too addictive productivity may fall among skilled users and they may find it necessary (or be forced) to quit. Then the network could face decline or collapse. For now, Twitter seems to be as healthy as ever, Mr Klein's complaints notwithstanding.

A final note: people who struggle to enjoy Twitter often seem to be following too many people; careful feed pruning improves the signal-to-noise-ratio. Of course, one reason people follow too many other users is the reputational aspect. It can be a negative for personal interactions online and in the real world when someone fails to follow back a new follower. But returning follows in that fashion clogs one's feed, makes the service less useful, reduces use, and weakens the value of the network. For that reason, the occasional Twitter "bug" that leads to random accidental unfollowing looks a very valuable thing indeed.